Sydney decisions could be wrap's undoing

If John Cameron, sitting in his office in the ABC's Sydney headquarters, looks like a man with the world against him, that's probably because it is. The reaction to the new 7pm TV news sports package of which he is the architect and chief barracker has been as negative as it is possible to get.

Friendless nationally (the Treasurer Peter Costello is a loud opponent) and a target for venom in the states (in Victoria unusual alliances are forming in an effort to reverse the decision), the ABC's national editor today can only shrug. "We can't control the community reaction," he told The Sunday Age. "Internally I feel confident staff will give it their best shot and understand we are motivated by all the right editorial decisions."

Of the extraordinary protests, he says: "There are emotions involved. It's a very public corporation. At the ABC, we are used to large doses of democracy like this."

But the wrap's opponents believe the decision by Sydney executives to impose a Sydney personality - Peter Wilkins - is ridiculous, untenable and anything but democratic.

It also gives poignant new meaning to the word "Sydney-centric" and raises a lot of questions about the corporation itself. Could it be right, Melbourne people are asking, that the ABC's Sydney-based executive have underestimated the tribal link Melbourne people have with AFL football and the way it is reported and discussed?

Do they really believe Melbourne people want a sports wrap presented by a man known for calling rugby league games and offering wry observations on Sydney sports on a Sydney-based panel show? Has the national broadcaster simply misread Australia's second largest city?

Matthew Ricketson, senior lecturer in RMIT University's school of journalism, believes it has. "It's very clear that the perception for Melburnians and Victorians is that the sports-mad culture of this city is being ignored or downgraded."

Asking viewers to accept Wilkins as anything but a rugby league identity was wrong, Ricketson said, especially given that he has made lots of derogatory comments about AFL over the years on radio "but the fact that he now wants to be known as a man for all sporting seasons is, at best, misleading and, at worst, disingenuous".

John Cameron, who was the ABC's Victorian state news chief for two years from 1999, is holding his ground, believing people "will find it enhances local coverage. Quite obviously it's been a strong reaction, but if people were prepared to listen to the facts, they will have a different view."

These facts are Cameron's claim that Wilkins' national wrap will allow more flexibility for local coverage and free up Melbourne presenters Angela Pippos and Christine Ahern to hit the road and report.

But Melbourne viewers liked them just where they were: topping and tailing reports by sports reporters.

The battle raging in AFL states is based on factors that would seem to be self-evident to alert senior executives at any media organisation, let alone the publicly funded one.

Sydney management has failed to grasp Melburnians' relationship with AFL football and that they want their own local presenters to throw to stories about it.

Cameron says he has "been personally pursuing a greater degree of excellence in our sports coverage". "It was generally agreed that we needed to get a better network standard of scripting and presenting and a greater execution of traditional news values in the way we covered sports-related news stories in our 7pm flagship. There was a bit too much of a front-page, back-page mentality." By this, Cameron means news was presented first, then sport, then weather.

Cameron is angry that states outside NSW are choosing to paint Wilkins as a Sydney figure. "To call Peter Wilkins an identifiable Sydney sports person . . . well, he will soon be an identifiable national sports figure."

The ABC has a massive selling job on its hands. Even before the end of the first week, ABC breakfast host Red Symons and AFL chief Andrew Demetriou were discussing how long the ABC would persist with it.

The ABC's Victorian state editor of news and current affairs, Marco Bass, told The Sunday Age the ABC would persist. "I think any new idea takes time to settle down. The critics have persistently failed to recognise that it is an enhanced local wrap."

Asked about the negative reaction to Wilkins, Bass said: "A lot of people in the Melbourne media are trying to generate it (that Wilkins is a Sydney figure). The hysterical nature of the reaction to this has left me flabbergasted, especially from your paper (The Age)."

Bass also attacked politicians. "I had a private meeting with (Minister for Sport) Justin Madden to explain the concept and he had no problem with it," Bass said.

"His private opinion and his public utterances are at odds."

He added that politicians had behaved opportunistically but declined to name them.

But Madden said Bass has misinterpreted their meeting, saying that "at no time did I agree with the format. He was well aware of my position."

Madden also said that "local content is relegated to second-tier status".

The other central figure in the saga, Peter Wilkins, is annoyed by his "Sydney identity" tag. "How do we view Bruce McAvaney or Eddie McGuire?" he asked. "This is a sharper editorial focus on the sports news . . . Why should the way it's been done for 40 years be the right way?"

But the wrap might after all be short-lived. John Cameron said: "I sent a staff memo yesterday saying if it doesn't work, obviously it won't survive. I say that not with resignation, but with confidence."